Action Research Readings

By teachers: 

1. What is the title of the project?

Teaching Science through Inquiry-Based and Hands-On Practices

2. What is the Question?

What are the benefits of using inquiry-based learning in science versus lecture and recitation?

Does asking factual versus evidential questions make a different in science literacy?

4. What strategy is being used to address?

Generating and testing hypothesis through hands-on, minds-on activities. 

5. What evidence is presented that the strategy will work?

The National Science Education Standards and the Benchmarks for Science Literacy. 

6. How will data be collected to determine if the strategy will work?

The teacher will do parent surveys and students' work based on case studies to see if the strategy is working. 

7. How was the data analyzed?

The teacher video taped small groups, and asked whole group questions for documentation. 

8. What were the results?

 The students were asking both factual and evidential questions, but more and more evidential questions were being seen in the classroom including with the students with learning differences (such as ELL, gifted and talented, speech and language, bilingual,etc.

9. How do the results inform teacher practice?

The results tell the teacher that the students are perfectly capable of asking and answering evidential questions the same as factual questions. They also inform the teacher that the students have an easier time asking those questions when learning is inquiry based rather than lecture and recitation. 

 

Student proposal:  

1. What is the problem?

Students in the PDS school struggle with recognizing rhyme and word families in text. The teacher's main goal is to improve the basic literacy skill according to the Strategic plan.

2. What is the rational for the project?

The rationale is that because this is a part of the Strategic plan the student teacher will use rhyming games to try to improve word family recognition and phonemic awareness. 

3. What strategy will be use to address the problem?

Playing rhyming games

4. What is the question?

How can I use a variety of rhyming games to help my students recognize rhyme and word families in text?

5. What evidence is presented that the strategy will work?

The student has a list of references that shows that research says that using rhyming games will improve the recognition of rhyme and word families. 

6. How will data be collected?

Checklists while students are in small groups and whole group reading. 

Struggling Student c:

There is one student in my clinical class who has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) written on her behalf. The IEP is specifically written for mathematics and calls for the student to have 30 minutes of co-teaching during the math block (which at my school is 50 minutes). So for the first 20 minutes, which is usually lecture, my host teacher is the only teacher in the room. Then the co-teacher comes in and stays for the rest of the block, which seems like a good idea because this is when the students are working individually on their homework. However, as I begin to sit and watch what is happening in the classroom, the opposite of what should happen is occurring.

When my host teacher is the only one in the room, this student seems to be paying attention and working through the mathematics. Although sometimes she needs to be cued back to working, the wheels are turning and she is at least copying the work off of the board. However, the minute the co-teacher enters the room the student seems to shut down. Her head drops and she seems to be very discouraged. I don’t quite understand this because the co-teacher is being brought into the classroom to improve the student’s math skills and instead, the student seems to be overwhelmingly discouraged.

Double Entry #15

1. Give an example of an authentic form of assessment the students engaged in a PBL performed well on?
The students who applied geometry to build a playhouse performed very well when assessed. The text says that 84% of the students' creations were accurate enough to build.



2. How does project based learning promote intrinsic motivation?
The students are more excited about the learning because it is students based. The students get to choose the topic and figure out how they are going to get an answer. Also, because students want to learn they reach for higher reading level materials and also find themselves having a better understanding of their own learning styles (working alone in quiet, with a partner or group, or working alone but with noise, etc.).


3. What do students who experience PBL do better than student who receive traditional direct instruction?
Students who have expereiences with PBLs generally not only perform better in testing situations but also have better time management, accountability, and pride in their workd that those inthe tradition direct instruction settings. They get good at setting goals that are achievable and reaching those goals. They also tend to have much better collaboration skills.
4. How does PBL align with John Dewey's philosophy of education?
Dewy believes that the best learning occurs through experiences and that the definiton of prior knowledge is not so much what the students KNOW but rather what they have expereienced. The PBL lines with Dewey's philosophies because PBLs are giving students authentic experiences. The students are learning the KNOWLEDGE through experiences given to them rather than information thrown at them.
5. Why do our assessment practices need to change if we are going to prepare students for the 21st century?
Our assessment practices need to change because currently we are only testing whether or not the students know the content, which sometimes may change. We are not preparing the students to live in such a changing world. The students must learn to problem solve, collaborate, communicate, etc. and a paper pencil test only tests their knowledge, not their skills.

Meaningful Learning Part 2

What are some challenges to inquiry approaches to learning?


Inquiry approaches to learning have multiple challenges for the TEACHER to overcome. First, she has to be willing to really sit down and the plan the activities. The planning process for inquiry learning is much more extensive than that of the traditional classroom. Also, the teacher must have full control over her classroom with good management skills in order for this type of learning to work. The students are going to be up talking and moving around and the teacher needs to be comfortable with this "chaotic" classroom but still be in control. Also, the teacher is going to have to have a full understanding of the content being taught and he or she must be confident in that understanding, which is why most teachers are intimidated with this teaching strategy. Many teachers think that the students aren't able to do this type of learning because they don't have the prior knowledge but truth is, their past experiences are generally enough to get them through the lesson and to teach them those things that they don't have any prior knowledge on.

What are the benefits of group work? Give two concrete examples from the reading.
Groupwork, although many teachers think is social time for kids, has many benefits including using this social time for learning. "Cooperative group work benefits students in social and behavioral areas" and also helps build those classroom management skills such as believing in themselves and their peers, staying on task, and interacting with one another (Ginsburg-Block).
Also, Slavin & Oikle found that group work benefits students in low income and minorities more than that of high income and majorities (?). We are always trying to find a way to reach those students who are less fortunate and group work is a good start.

Name one strategy to support group work and find an example of that strategy on the Internet and link me to it.
Cooperative Learning

Questions by Teacher & Students

In this activity the students had a piece of a picture and they were having discussion about what was happening in the picture. My teacher called this a document based learning because they were learning  based on what they could see on a document (which in this case was a picture). 

• What kind of assumptions can we make by looking at this picture? 
• Its in Africa because of the dark skin. 
• It was taken along a river because you can see the riverbank on the bottom corner. 
• This is a picture of a poor country because they live in huts and there are clothes out on the line. 
• Most of the people in this place are fishermen, because you can see all the boats. 
• These people mostly travel by boat. 
• Maybe this place has been wiped out by a flood or something and it once was a rich place. 
• Okay, this is only part of a picture. What do you think is going to be in the background of this picture when I give it to you? 
• I think its going to be farmland. 
• I think it will be just an open field.
• So you guys don't seem to think that this is on the outskirts of a city right? 
• No, I don't think it's on the outskirts of a city or there would be more city living here. 
• No, there's no city back there, the city would have already crowded in on these people if there was one. 
• Now that you have the next part of the picture, are you surprised?
• Yes, I am surprised because there is some sort of factory back there.
• Well, I am surprised but maybe these people lived out there and now they are being forced towards the water because of this oil factory. 
• So you think that these people weren't always fishermen but this is what they have had to do because fo the factory? 
• No, I think they were always fishermen. I just think that they had to move to this place so maybe their houses were built quickly and that's why they look poor.

This was just an example of one discussion that the students were in with the teacher.  I thought the teacher did a good job of questioning here because she made the students draw on information they already had and asked open ended questions for the most part.

Interest Inventory about School Subjects

I gave this survey to 19 students and was actually very surprised by the answers. My teacher told me at the beginning of the year that one of her main goals this year was to raise her students' confidence in their math abilities. I wish I could have recorded this same interest inventory at the beginning of the year to see if math was originally their overall favorite subject. One of the students actually gave my host teacher the credit for being the reason math was her favorite subject.
Also, I was shocked to see that language and grammar was their least favorite only because they spend 90 minutes a day working on language, grammar, and spelling. It is scary to think that overall, most of the students aren't interested that entire 90 minutes and I wonder if they are disengaging at all.

Meaningful Learning

1. Read the Introduction. What "dominant paradigm" is showing signs of wear?

The particular instructional strategy that is teacher-directed and where the teacher's primary source is the textbook. This is the times that you walk into a classroom and the teacher is in the front of the room, the students all sitting in their seats with their books open, possibly playing popcorn but being stopped throughout the reading to discuss the chapter. 

2. According to the research, how does Project-Based Learning support student learning better than traditional approaches? Describe three benefits and cite the studies.

• It is centered in the curriculum, uses driving questions that lead students to central concepts, focused on building knowledge through inquiry and discovery, students control their learning, and its authentic. (Thomas, 2000)
• It increases the students' critical thinking skills because they can more easily transfer the information they learn. (Shepherd, 1998)
• It also teaches the students to be prepared to support their answers with clear arguments and to come up with plans to solving problems more easily. (Stepien, Gallagher, & Workman)

3.  According to the research, how does Problem-Based Learning support student learning better than traditional approaches? Describe three benefits and cite the studies.

• Students who learn with this approach often score higher on their "certification" tests because they can actually transfer the information. (Vernon & Blake, 1993; Albanese & Mitchell, 1993)
• The information learned by doing seems to be more long lasting than that of the traditional instructional styles. (Robert J. Van Maren)
• Problem Based Learning also enhances a students' ability to apply knowledge and generate hypthesis. (Dochy, Segers, Van den Bossche, & Gijbels, 2003).

4.  According to the research, how does Learning by Design support student learning better than traditional approaches? Describe three benefits and cite the studies.

• Learning by Design teaches the students to design, refine, and assess their work. (Newstetter, 2000)
• It leads to better learning outcomes than the traditional style. (Hmelo, Holton, and Kolodner, 2000)
• It's particularly good at helping students develop hard to reach concepts and ideas. It makes for more concrete thinking to abstract ideas. (Perkins, 1986)

5. What are the differences between the three approaches?

These three approaches are all a way to encourage students to apply the information being taught in more authentic and real situations and to take the knowledge on with them in their future. Project Based Learning is more about building or creating something that is hands-on, minds-on in the learning process. Problem Based Learning is mostly about finding a solution to an authentic situation. Learning by design is about being able to create something tangible, reconstruct it to make it better, and assess it again. 

6. In your opinion, what is the most important benefit to learning that is common across the three types of inquiry-based learning approaches?

The most important benefit is that the students are gaining skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, and reflecting that they will need to use in their futures. The students are also learning concepts rather than just a list of facts and therefore, the information will last in their minds for much longer.